Natural dyeing – Lupine

Beautiful green handspun wool dyed with Lupine flowers

It seems like greens are difficult to get with natural plant dyes, so when I read that green (even bright acid green!) could be obtained with Lupine flowers, I wanted to try it.

We have had lupine growing in our backyard for years – the flowers seem to be a favourite of bees, and they are a dramatic, beautiful, colourful flower. I read on The Easy Blues that lupine is originally a North American plant, though I remember being in Vantta, Finland and seeing vast fields full of them… they self-seed, and the seed pods POP sending the seeds all over the place, so apparently there they’re almost treated like a very pretty weed.

Byzantine Capsule

11th Century Byzantine costume

The next “Capsule Costume Collection” is another small one- I have two main outfits (and a few extra accessories and pieces) where some of the accessories play double-duty.

Byzantine Capsule Costume Collection

I didn’t originally think I’d end up making very many outfits in this area. I made the original for a thematic contest/fashion show (where I won first place in the advanced category!) and really liked it- but it’s so far out from the time frame I’m mostly interested in.  Then my friend from Adventures in Block Printing got an amazing Persian Prancing Pony block and lent it to me… and another outfit was born.

Egyptian Capsule wardrobe

Orange loose sheath dress with ‘sleeves’ and a v-neck with a teal ‘coat’.

The next “Capsule Costume Collection” .. well.. isn’t. I have one outfit. However, I really liked making it, and found it fun to wear, so I can foresee making other items to go with it. I think with the simplicity of the items, and how interchangeable the layers are, it would be a great candidate for a capsule wardrobe.

Finnish Costume Capsule

My new Finnish Iron Age outfit, minus the underdress.

One of the ‘wardrobes’ I’m examining for my Capsule Costume Collection is my Finnish Iron-Age costume ‘wardrobe’.

Finnish Iron Age capsule wardrobe

Calling my Finnish Iron Age costume items a  “wardrobe” is a bit ambitious really. Right now what I have for this costume amounts to very few garments.

• I have one peplos-style overdress, and use the under dresses from my Viking Age wardrobe.
• I also have a small selection of accessories including a hat, two coil-embellished apron panels, and a few pairs of mittens.
• I also have jewelry like a set of brooches, and two necklaces. There are other accessories I would like to add (or improve upon what I have) like a knife.

However, each layer works well with other layers, and I think it’s another good candidate for a capsule wardrobe.

Montengarde Samhain (Nov 7) – instructors wanted

Lucet cord class at the SCA Festival of the SnowEaters

While pretty much every SCA event has moved online, the upcoming November 7th Samhain event is no different. Oddly (?) for the past few years I haven’t been very involved in the SCA, but with things moving online, all of the accessibility (and other) issues that plagued me with in-person SCA events are mostly gone!

With that in mind, I offered to join the team working to make the event happen. The Baron wanted to focus on classes and Bardic, so I’m putting out a call for volunteer instructors for the classes!

There is no strong theme, so we’re pretty open to any classes that suit the SCA, and are functional with the online medium.

A woman demonstrating the drop spindle. She was one of the demonstrators at the Turku Medieval Market from the SCA group.

However, in order to help some folks folks who have such huge inventories of classes to choose from….

• Our Baron’s main persona is German Renaissance, so I’d like to include German Renaissance related classes
• Our Baroness is Viking, so Viking-related classes would be great
• I’ve felt in the past that culinary is under-represented at TUA and A&S, so would like to include culinary classes
• Likewise, I feel that family activities / youth-centric classes are under-represented, so would like to include classes around family activities or classes specifically for youth to attend online. (Given that many children are doing schooling online, I recognize that they might be online-school’d out however.)
• I’m super excited about the new Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion and would love to included classes in that area – especially around making SCA accessible to people, regardless of wealth, education, physical ability, neuro-diversity, religion, gender identity, race, etc.
• And of course…. anything bardic related – from dance, music, song, performance…. any classes relevant to the bards.

On a personal note, I’d also love to include hat-making and Finnish Iron Age classes as well!

If you’re interested in teaching – please drop me a line on Facebook! The event will be in Mountain Standard Time, and is scheduled for November 7th (though I’m told if there’s enough interest November 8th is an additional option).

Join us!

Naalbinding class at The Vikings marketplace at the Royal BC museum

There isn’t a Facebook event yet, but one will be coming. In the meantime you can see what’s happening on the Montengarde website calendar –  of course I’d love any of my readers to join in too if you’re interested!